ABSIRACT: The relationship between efficacy and selected instructional vareables was explored for two types of special education teachers. Teachers were categorized either as direct service providers, who provided direct instruction or behavioral interventions to students with mild disabilities, or as indirect service providers, who spent at least 50% of their time consulting, collaborating, or team teaching with general educators. Significant positive correlations found between efficacy and three instructionally-relevant factors were for both types of teachers. Type of service was related to only one instructional component, Instructional Experimentation. Recommendations for teacher education are addressed.

This study examined the relationship between special education teachers' sense of personal and teaching efficacy and (a) their use of a formative evaluation method (curriculum-based measurement) and (b) the amount of growth they effected among their students. nineteen special education teachers monitored two students with mild disabilities over 16 weeks in math computation using curriculum-based measurement. results indicated that teachers with high personal efficacy and high teaching efficacy increased end-of-year goals more often for their students; teachers with high teaching efficacy set end-of-year goals that were more ambitious for their students. teachers with high personal efficacy effected significantly greater growth. suggestions for additional research and implications for practice are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to assess the contribution of ongoing skills analysis to Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM). Thirty special educators were assigned randomly to treatment groups, including a control condition and different levels of CBM analysis, one of which included graphed performance indicators with skills analysis; one, graphed performance indicators only; and another, graphed performance indicators with ordered lists of student spellings. Teachers who used skills analysis effected, better achievement than controls and than CBM teachers who had no additional analysis. Although the mean achievement of students whose teachers had skills analysis was greater than that of teachers who inspected ordered lists of errors, the difference in achievement was not reliable, and the teachers who inspected errors effected greater growth than controls. Implications for CBM practice are discussed.

This study explored the effect of differential implementation of curriculum-based measurement (CBM) on math computation achievement of students with mild disabilities. In addition, selected variables associated with the quality with which teachers implement CBM were examined. Twenty-nine special education teachers each monitored two students with mild disabilities in math computation using CBM for 16 weeks. Results indicated that students whose teachers implemented CBM more accurately made significantly greater math gains than did students whose teachers (a) implemented CBM less accurately and (b) did not use CBM. Adequacy of planning time was associated with the quality of CBM implementation.

We investigated the hypothesis that treatment acceptability influences teachers' use of a formative evaluation system (curriculum-based measurement) and, relatedly, the amount of gain effected in math for their students. Twenty-one special education teachers implemented curriculum-based measurement for 4 months. On the basis of their responses to a questionnaire assessing treatment acceptability of curriculum-based measurement, teachers were divided into groups (high- and low-acceptability). We compared the two groups of teachers on (a) five measures of implementation and (b) amount of growth evidenced by their students in math. Results indicated that high- and low-acceptability teachers differed on two of five implementation measures, and that there was a significant difference in the rate of growth effected in their students in math. Implications of results relative to the use of formative evaluation and measurement of treatment acceptability are discussed.